Gender and caregiving influence academic performance of ecologists

MARÍA PIQUER-RODRÍGUEZ; AGUSTINA NOVILLO; MARÍA SANDOVAL SALINAS; FONTANARROSA, GABRIELA; MA. GABRIELA NÚÑEZ MONTELLANO; MARISA ÁLVAREZ; VALERIA ASCHERO; VERÓNICA CHILLO; MARÍA ELISA FANJUL; EDGARDO PERO; DANIELA RODRÍGUEZ; NATALIA SCHROEDER; LUCÍA ZARBÁ; SILVIA LOMÁSCOLO

Praga

Congreso; 6 th European Congress of Conservation Biology; 2022

In science, greater dedication leads to higher performance. Consequently, scientists withcaregiving responsibilities will suffer downfalls in productivity. Caregivers are mainly women, sotheir career is highly affected. Based on a self-perception survey among Argentinean ecologists,we studied the distribution of caregiving responsibilities, time use distribution at work, andperception of researchers’ own work in relation to gender. We found that a larger percentage ofwomen carry caregiving duties, dedicate less uninterrupted time to work, and more to non-work-related tasks, than their male’s counterparts. We found no effect of caregiving on age atpromotion, although women tend to start earlier stages of their careers younger than men.Women tend to value their own work more poorly than men. Moreover, the work-family balanceis perceived negatively by women in early career stages. We claim that caregiving duties must beconsidered worldwide when evaluating a researcher’s performance, especially for women. Publicpolicies must help relieve women from heavy caregiving tasks and facilitate leaving their homespace to detach from not-work-related tasks. Greater peer recognition of women’s researchshould increase their participation as advisers and referents, as well as their own work recognitionand that of other women.